All posts tagged ‘kids games’

I am no longer a GameStorm virgin. I have lived in Vancouver, Washington pretty much my entire life, and have never made it to a GameStorm before this year. It’s kind of like living in New York and never going to see the Statue of Liberty. This year marks the 14th GameStorm which has amassed 200+ (for a total of 1200 gaming enthusiasts) more people than previous years. Why is this? Well, some people I talked to conclude that we spend so much of our working time in front of a glowing monitor that does not talk to us, console us, or do much of anything except mock us, that we crave a warm person with a pulse to interact with.

Today I have learned what to do differently next year.

I need to register for the games I want to play ahead of time — months ahead of time. The very popular games (such as Quarriors) were full for the entire weekend.

Taking the kids is a good thing — at least for awhile. There was an entire room of kids’ activities that included a motorized marble run, face painting, board games, books, crafts, and other activities. This room was great for kids age 5 and under. However, I don’t think I could take my two-and-a-half-year-old out of this room really.

I will register for next year on the last day of the convention.

A motorized marble run for the kids!

My six-year-old daughter would have a blast here (she did not attend the convention this year, but is signed up for next year) — in the children’s room or otherwise. My two-year-old son? Well, he had fun in the children’s room until he was both hungry and tired. He was able to soak up a nap in his own bed while I waited for my husband Tim to play tag-team so I could head back to the convention.

My Locke and Key hand...

When I made it back, I was in card game heaven! I lurked around the Cryptozoic Entertainment table to play Locke and Key and Penny Arcade, the Game — Gamers vs Evil. Both were entertaining in their own way. Locke and Key I will devote an article to soon since I received a review copy. Penny Arcade is a deck-building game with cartoon pictures in the style of the Penny Arcade comic strip. It’s good, clean, adult, fun…well, okay, it isn’t clean but it is adult, and certainly snicker-worthy. Personally, I think it was better than Dominion since you can spend your money and energy on multiple purchases and not just one action per turn. I also managed to sneak in a game of Pokémon. This was difficult considering the key demographic for my favorite game is about twenty years younger than the average GameStorm attendee.

Making our Locke and Key plays...

Eventually, my card hands started dancing in front of me, and I knew it was time to go home and get a good night sleep to have another full day of gaming tomorrow…

Avid players of the Pokémon video games will recognize the name Seth McMahill almost immediately. As early as 2000, Seth was developing and play testing Pokémon: Stadium 2 for Nintendo. Pokémon is still a huge success with additions of the Black and White series of games and cards.

The newest addition to the family of games is PokéPark2: Wonders Beyond. Seth McMahill was able to join us and discuss the release of the game via a video interview.

Seth’s excitement for PokéPark2: Wonders Beyond was understandable when I started playing the game. As with most other console Pokémon games, the little pocket monsters’ cuteness is infectious.

Graphics: The graphics are the same quality and style of the previous Pokémon Wii games. A point of note is the loading screens: they are adorable! My daughter and I would sit and coo over them between scenes. In other parts of the game even my husband came through the room at a couple of points noting, “How did they manage to make Pikachu’s paw prints in the sand cute?” and “Even angry Pikachu is cute!”

Play: If you receive this game and expect a typical Pokémon arena of picking your six-Pokémon-team based on weakness and strength to other types of Pokémon, you will be sorely disappointed. I would call this game a cross between a Super Mario Brothers game and Super Smash Brothers. In other words, there is a lot of, “I’m sorry, Piplup isn’t in this world, please check the next one.” Battles aren’t necessarily based on picking the best move against your opponent so much as mashing buttons and shaking your Wii-mote like a Poloroid picture. Movement and dialog are fairly easy to get through. I have found playing the game repetitive and a little boring in parts. The solution to this problem has been to let my six-year-old daughter play through to become friends with all of the Pokémon so I can play the hard parts to keep the story moving and open up new areas on the map. I have no problem letting her play this game as all of the dialog is written, so it forces her to read (above her grade level for that matter).

Story: Poképark’s inhabitents are lost to the WISH WORLD via the evil Gothita, Gothorita, and Gothitelle. Pikachu, Snivy, Oshawott, and Tepig must keep the worlds from being swallowed by the Vortex. Each of the Pokémon have their own personality and special talent. Snivy and Oshawott seem to be our favorites as Oshawott is an otter (a favorite animal of mine) and Snivy is a bratty little tom-boy (her friends greet her to the party with the statement, “You’re a GIRL?!”).

Mother Approved or Dust Collector: Mother Approved. If you know of a Pokémon fan who likes the button mashing Wii games, PokéPark2: Wonders Beyond is an obvious choice. It lags a little for my taste, but this one and only flaw is remedied by letting my daughter friend all of the Pokémon for me, making this a good family game.

PokéPark2: Wonders Beyond is available in retail stores or on Amazon for $52 plus shipping.

Sesame Street has been around for many years. Part of having a following over generations is keeping up with technology, and Sesame Street has certainly done that with games like Sesame Street: Ready, Set, Grover! for the Nintendo DS. Grover, Elmo, and Abby Cadabby give your child audio/visual instructions on how to complete mini-games in five categories that encourage healthy eating and living.

What You Get: You get the game, a nice thick, yellow Grover stylus that is great for little fingers, and a lanyard for your Nintendo DS.

The Game: You can have three save files in the game. English and Spanish are both provided as language choices. There are four categories in the game: “The Street,” “The Garden,” “The Park,” and “The Pond.” Each category has five mini games to be completed.

The Street: Stretching is the first game in “The Street.” The player taps the body part on Abby that Grover stretches. I would have taken this game a bit further and had the player drag the body part in the direction of the action instead of just tapping. Other games in this section include Grocery Catch, where you slide your tray from side to side so falling groceries can be caught. Elmo’s Danceathon is the same game as Stretching except the characters dance instead of stretch. Feed the Monster involves matching the color of a food and flinging it at a monster with a matching color card in front of it. Sesame Street Scramble has your characters ducking and jumping.

The Garden: The games in this category include Harvest Catch, Duck Duck Fruit, Colorful Cuisine, Three Sneezes, and Plumb Drop. These games all have a similar counterpart in the previous category. My five-year-old minion actually was bored with this set of games since Duck Duck Fruit only uses ducking as a skill and Harvest Catch only uses jumping. In Sesame Street Scramble both of these skills are used in the same game.

The Park: Again, the games are fairly similar to games from other categories. Grover Says, like the name implies is similar to Simon Says. The mechanics are just like the previous stretching and dancing games. Grover’s Freeze Game involves keeping your stylus moving until Grover says, “stop.” The kid did stop moving the stylus long before being told to stop. The other games in this category include Potato Sack Jump, Tricycle Trail, and Sporting Catch. All of these games have similar mechanics to games in previous categories.

The Pond: Three of the games in “The Pond” feature Elmo, which for my taste is more than a game featuring Grover needed. I personally find Elmo’s voice too high and squeaky to find him cute. This being said, I think “The Pond” has the most unique challenges in the game. The challenges include brushing a horse’s teeth, counting how many times a ball bounces in the air, and steering a boat to pick up beach balls.

Acheivment Unlocked?: This game is easy for young pre-schoolers, colorful, and subtly educational. My five-year-old had no problems maneuvering through the entire game in a 45 minute period. She chooses to play it occasionally. Even though it was “easy,” my daughter really enjoyed the characters. The games are educational enough without being brainless gaming. The Grover stylus works especially well and has become a favorite tool of family members.

Shelf Fodder: There are 5 different categories, but each seems to have very similar games. Grover is in the title, but there seems to be a generous amount of time dedicated to Elmo. The skill sets could have been put in a better order and some of the skills could have been expanded instead of being used repeatedly in the games.

If there’s one thing the iPad is good at it’s games, and this one from Sega, based on a 2009 arcade game, is a great example. Kids who are trapped on a car ride, or waiting at an airport, or anyplace where there is nothing to do and time is passing far too slowly will find a welcome reprieve helping the Brick People get their dinner. The premise is simple: stack Lego-style bricks like stairs so that the absurdly cute Brick People can hop up and reach their snacks. You don’t actually control the people, you just control the bricks by dragging them from the edges of the screen and stacking them like stairs so they’ll hop up them like adorable crazed bunnies.

In single-player mode you compete against the clock to direct your little Brick People to their snacks, or on some screens, reach numbered icons in the right order. There’s even a variation where your people have to eat a hot pepper followed by a drop of water or risk bursting into flames. In between missions, a Brick Monster pops up and sets up a specific pattern of bricks that you have to duplicate before the clock runs out. Gameplay is simple and straight-forward so that even younger players will be able to get the hang of it in no time.

There are three modes, Easy, Normal and Hard, and multiple missions within each of those modes so you’re drawn in to the challenge of seeing just how much you can manage. As fun as it is in single-player, in multiplayer it’s a full on battle. I pitted my two grade-school aged kids against each other and couldn’t tear them away. I may have momentarily feared for the safety of my iPad as they frantically dragged bricks across the screen trying to out do each other. I received a copy of this game for review purposes but for just $2.99 in the iTunes store you can have it, too. It will keep your kids happily entertained and you, too — if you can manage to get a turn.

Argh, matey! Oh, I know Talk Like a Pirate Day has come and gone, but this fantastic app from Kidoodle Apps will have you and your kids celebrating all year. It was created by two parents who wanted their son to have fun playing with the latest tech gadgets while using his imagination at the same time. They sent me a copy of their new app for review, and once my kids finally let me take a look, I could see why they were having so much fun.

Designed for the iPad, each page of this doodle book presents a portion of a picture, like a pair of pirate boots and a sword, or a partially drawn parrot. It’s up to your child to finish it off making it as realistic or completely crazy as their heart desires. A turn of the page is accompanied by a piratey voice-over and a bit of animation that interacts with your child’s picture. My daughter couldn’t stop giggling when the bacon she’d drawn on an empty plate was noisily gobbled up by a particularly hungry pirate.

After your child has finished a page they can save it and even email it to you, so your inbox will be filled with the best artwork a parent can ever receive. And once they’ve gone through the book, they can go back and redo pages as often as they like creating new and better variations of their personal adventure. That empty plate I mentioned earlier has been filled with bacon, Oreos, cupcakes and ladybugs, just to name a few. Yes, I said ladybugs. It’s all about their imaginations so things are certain to get wonderfully wacky.

Currently, there are 15 pages to Pirate Scribblebeard’s Treasure with plans for more in the future, but once you purchase the app for just $2.99 you’ll be able to get new pages for no charge. If you’ve got an iPad or iPad2 and a child who likes to draw, check out this app and be ready to swab the decks, hoist the main and have some piratey fun!

My Pokemon mentor once said to me, “The family that games together, stays together.” He couldn’t be more correct.

A few weeks ago I shared with you how my husband and I balance being parents and gamers. My husband and I encourage our kids to play games as well. It doesn’t matter if it’s a game we made up with balls, an educational game, a board game, or a video game. Don’t get me wrong, video game play is earned and the time spent playing them is monitored.

Educational games for kids are fairly easy to find. Several companies focus on educational games for kids. Kid appropriate games that are just like mom and dad’s are a little harder to come by.

Our kids often are more interested in the games we play instead of their own. So, here are some kid friendly ideas that are related to the adult versions our little geek 2.0′s might not be ready for.

Pokémon instead of Magic the Gathering

Try Pokémon instead of Magic the Gathering: The mechanics are very similar. The artwork is amazing without being as graphic as Magic. I know some parents cringe at the thought of letting the cute little animé creatures into their homes. The truth is, I used to be one of those parents. Then Call of Legends was released and my then 4-year-old daughter fell in love and was inspired to read. She can now read the cards and count by 10′s and she isn’t even in Kindergarten yet. I think these skills were greatly helped by playing Pokémon. Strategy skills and other math skills are also exercised by playing. Card packs run $4-$15. Most leagues are free and some even offer decks to check out and play.

RPG Kids instead of Dungeons and Dragons

Try RPG Kids instead of Dungeons and Dragons:RPG Kids is a simpler version of Dungeons and Dragons for kids age 4-7. It only uses two dice and the characters can be as simple as attacking only, all the way to having feats and resistances (if you want them). This game also offers an opportunity for parents who have never been a DM before to do so. The game is very easy to run and set up. It comes with pieces that you can cut out, or you can make your own. It can be purchases for $2.99 from RPGNow.com. RPG Kids uses math, reading, and strategy skills.

Try Hero Quest instead of Warhammer or other war games.

Try Hero Scape or Hero Quest instead of miniature war games like Warhammer: Over a year ago, my husband and I were both very much into playing Warhammer. Since we spent a decent ammount of time painting our miniatures and playing the game, our daughter also became interested. We found a copy of Heroscape at our local second hand store. We took all of the miniatures out and let her play with them while we were playing Warhammer. Now she’s ready for Hero Quest which has a similar turn style to RPG Kids. If you have crafty kids, why not let them paint a spare miniature?

Computer games aren’t evil, but computers might be (the cake is a LIE)!: We used to be into playing World of Warcraft and other MMO’s. Now, if we actually have the time to play on the computer, we tend to play games like Minecraft, Spore, and Portal 2. The skills used in these games have a huge range but include building and following directions in Minecraft, budgetting money and strategy in Spore, and strategy in Portal. These games are fun for the entire family. It has been debated how much time kids should be spending playing video games, and how young is too young, but computer games have been an asset in our house when played in moderation. There are also some great websites that offer educational and fun games such as Starfall, PBS Kids, and a favorite at our house – Pokémon.

Do you have a Leapster or DS?: The games offered for the LeapFrog Leapster system are themed after popular characters our kids like (such as Star Wars and Pixar characters). The games are FAR more educational than games played on the DS systems, but the characters and desirableness are comparable. We have used Leapster gaming time as a reward for helping with chores without being asked or, as a quiet gaming activity while mom and dad are playing with other adults.

I hope the ideas shared here inspire you to share a gaming experience with your kids. They don’t even have to be old enough to read in most cases, all you both need is some imagination and patience. What games have you found recently to play with your kids?

My daughter, who constantly wants me to download her new games onto my iPhone, recently tried out another interactive book Jack and the Beanstalk by Mindshapes, the same folks who brought us the Jellytoons.

Screen shot courtesy of Mindshapes

Jack and the Beanstalk is an interactive story where young readers can choose to either read the story or have it read to them. They’re brought on an interactive journey though a modernized version of traditional story where Jack daydreams about monsters and plays video games. Each page features something for kids to do such as dressing Jack, playing the magic harp, and tapping on the pictures for additional dialogue.

Screen shot courtesy of Mindshapes

It’s just an interactive book, with no additional mini-games, but it does have a chapter function so readers can return to their favorite pages. It’s an entertaining app. The words appear really small on my iPhone making it not as ideal for an emerging reader to practice as some other interactive books, but my daughter still really likes it and plays with it over and over again.

Jellytoon’s Birthday Countdown is an interactive storybook aimed at the toddler set with its bright and colorful shapes and cute sound effects. Its simple sentences make its “Let Me Read” option a good one for readers who are still emerging and need some extra motivation like silly sound effects and interactive pictures. My daughter enjoyed playing with it, using it to practice her still-emerging reading skills, and she also liked listening to it read the story to her.

She enjoyed it so much we downloaded Bobo’s Birthday Challenge, another Jellytoon iPhone app which features the same characters.

Bobo’s Birthday Challenge is a series of simple mini-games each focusing on skill, like colors, counting, and shapes. When kids complete a game they get to choose a present from the present room. It features the same colorful characters and graphics as Jellytoon’s Birthday Countdown and easy to follow verbal instructions. There’s also a tracking function for parents so you can monitor your child’s progress.

Bobo's Birthday Challenge--Screen shot courtesy of Mindshapes

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed both apps and would probably download other Jellytoon games and interactive books.

Our kids have an entire area dedicated to their boardgames that is separate from the adult games. Since my husband and I play boardgames with other couples on a fairly regular basis, it was easy to get our daughter interested in playing as well. She likes doing what mom and dad do. She doesn’t care so much about winning but more about the colors and actions and pieces to any games we play.

So, when I was given the opportunity to try the new games from Creative Toyshop, I jumped on it. The names of the games and cute cartoon characters immediately grabbed my attention. My daughter happened to be looking over my shoulder and jumped in asking for the “game with the monkeys” (Young Learners Monkey Nuts Alphabet Game) before I even had a chance to ask if she was interested in playing.

Construction: The pieces are a thick cardboard coated material that are very sturdy. Before playing the game the first time, you may want to open the game and punch out all of the pieces. If your kids are anything like mine, they will like to help in the construction.

Rules and Game Play: The rules are located on the bottom of the box so you don’t have to go hunting through all of the pieces for them. The rules are straight forward. It is a cross between Bingo and Memory. There is repetition in the game, but it’s appropriate to the child to learn the letters and sounds and isn’t so repetitive that adults won’t want to play. My two favorite points of the game play are that there are bright easily identifiable pictures representing each letter, or letter pairing, on the player board and the letters are lower case.

Monkey Nuts board

Age Appropriate: The game is rated for ages 4+. If you started with just the single letters, it could probably be played with first year pre-schoolers.

Fun vs. Educational: Monkey Nuts is already a favorite at our house after a week of playing it. I have no reservations about my daughter asking to play this game because it reinforces what she is learning at school and is adding the element of combining letter sounds while she thinks she’s collecting nuts for the monkeys to eat.

Game On! or Cobweb Collector: Game On! I have nothing but good things to say about this game.

Construction: Like Monkey Nuts, the pieces are a thick and hard cardboard with a glossy finish. There are several pages of clock cards and activity cards which take some time to punch out, and some assembly is required on the clock.

Rules and Game Play: The rules are straight forward and can be found on the back of the box. Hickory Dickory is a memory matching game. You find clocks that match your activity cards. When you are able to match an activity card, you get to move your mouse up the clock and change the time.

Age Appropriate: The box says 5+, but we had a hard time playing this game the first time with phrases like “quarter to,” and “quarter past.” After a school teacher went through the game with our daughter, she suggested using only the “o’clock cards” until the concept was understood, and then add in the “half past” cards and eventually the “quarter past” and “quarter to” cards. The activity cards do show a digital format of the time along with the analog making it easier to make matches.

Hickory Dickory game board

Fun vs. Educational: Because it’s a race, and there is a chance you will make the mice fall down by turning over a “1 o’clock,” there is a competitive fun factor added to all of the educational points. The child gets to practice reading the title of the activity shown on their card, they get to read the time in digital and analog before finding a match, AND they get to be hands-on learners changing the time on the clock when they make a match.

Game On! or Cobweb Collector: Game On! Though a bit difficult for the listed 5+ age range, our child still found this to be a fun game worthy of playing again.